Page 3483 - Week 08 - Thursday, 18 August 2011
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You are stripping all of the policy of all of the governments of the day since self-government that have put through variation processes and public consultation—every variation to date: all 300-plus of them. You are throwing all of that policy out. That is the decision that is underpinning this removal of intent. It is a significant policy change. It fundamentally destroys the territory plan.
That clearly is a very worrying statement. The Chief Planning Executive had a different view—that the purposes and the objectives of the zone are, in effect, giving you the intent. But, at the very least, I would say as a non-planning professional that it is worrying that the planning institute thinks we have managed to get it wrong and leave out the policy.
I would also say as a Green who is really concerned about some of the higher order planning issues such as greenhouse gas reduction that it is worrying that we do not seem to have a structure which puts the things that the community has decided as a whole—such as a 40 per cent legislated greenhouse gas reduction target—clearly front and centre. This is what has got to happen. It seems quite bizarre how it is all going to get involved.
One other smaller issue I might mention is solar access. The previous community zones had more in them about overshadowing solar access. We asked ACTPLA about it and they said there was a nexus between 302 and 306, and that following 306 coming into place, it will expand on it and flesh it all out and there will be a firm basis for the policy. My problem is that 306 has not come into effect, and given the complexity in it—I have been to a number of community council meetings, including the inner south this week, where people were expressing considerable disquiet, and some of the professional institutes are in the same position—it strikes me that it is going to be a long time before we see 306.
I put out a press release a few weeks ago suggesting that with 306 we were repeating the problems of 301 and 303 and that we should separate it into two—having the solar part and the other part—in the interests of managing to get the solar access legislation passed within this Assembly’s lifetime. At the rate 306 is going, I am not confident that it will be passed within this Assembly’s lifetime.
That is probably all I have to say on 302. I commend the variation to the Assembly and look forward to other ones being better written.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (11.10): I, too, rise to speak about the report of the Standing Committee on Planning, Public Works and Territory and Municipal Services, draft variation to the territory plan No 302 into the community facility zones. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in your capacity as chair of the committee and Ms Le Couteur in her capacity as deputy chair. Most of my views have already been put on the record by both you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Ms Le Couteur and also, of course, in the report itself, which is something I support.
It is worth stressing, however, the view put forward by the planning institute and captured in part, or perhaps even in full, in recommendations 3 and 5 with regard to the use of the words “ancillary use” and “minor use”. Both terms have caused considerable confusion and they have, to an extent, been a catch-all that has been
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